IN A PRIVATE ASYLUM

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 208, 30 May 1936, Page 25

IN A PRIVATE ASYLUM

“Mad House,” by .Blair Niles. (London: Werner Laurie. 7/-). A novel with a private asylum fur the insane as its setting, may not appear to be promising entertainment, but in the capable hands of Mrs. Niles, it becomes an absorbing story. Wisely she has not attempted to make a sociological story of it. Her hero is a normal young man who gets himself committed to the institution as a scheme to rid himself of ah unwanted fiancee and her scheming mother. The heroine is a young woman suffering from loss of memory. A convincing drama is built around these two, and the story moves logically forward as the young woman emerges from the darkness which surrounds her past into a view of her life as a whole, and the young man frees himself from conventional ignorance and thoughtlessness and achieves a clear idea of what he is to make of his future. The background ami the minor characters which move against it are admirably sketched in.